Toco, QRC and Bishop seek relay repeat

To­co Sec­ondary, Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) and Bish­op Anstey High school are all set to de­fend their re­spec­tive ti­tles at the T&T Sec­ondary Schools Track and Field As­so­ci­a­tion's (TTSST­FA) Re­lay Fes­ti­val to­mor­row.

The ac­tion will un­fold at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma from 9.30 am with a pa­rade of the schools be­fore ac­tion races off at 10 am.

Yes­ter­day, stu­dent-ath­letes Ric­ah Hen­ry and Ish­mael Olivierre of To­co Sec­ondary spoke con­fi­dent­ly of re­claim­ing their over­all crown, which they have won over the past years.

"We have a lot of ded­i­cat­ed ath­letes like to­wards their train­ing," said Hen­ry. "An­na Lee Wal­cott, who is the coach, is very ex­cel­lent at do­ing her job. We have stu­dents who are just gift­ed and just tal­ent­ed. We put our best foot for­ward and get the job done."

Olivierre agreed ful­ly with his team­mate say­ing: "We have the dis­ci­pline and we are ded­i­cat­ed to get­ting the work done."

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of oth­er schools al­so boast­ed of their readi­ness for the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed com­pe­ti­tion, which made a re­turn to the TTSST­FA cal­en­der af­ter its ab­sence last year.

"We are very much ex­cit­ed for the com­pe­ti­tion," cho­rused duo Ak­il Bois­son and Do­minic Cole of the reign­ing boys cham­pi­on QRC when asked how they felt lead­ing up to the Valen­tine's Day event.

"We do have a tra­di­tion of track and field with the likes of Richard Thomp­son, De­on Lendore, Je­hue Gor­don and just to main­tain the tra­di­tion, to keep those high-class ath­let­ics with­in the in­sti­tu­tion, we want to main­tain that stan­dard," said Cole, who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Youth Olympics in Ar­genti­na last year.

Speak­ing on be­half of the three-time girls' cham­pi­on Bish­op Anstey, Ja­da Brown, added that her team is al­so ex­cit­ed for the up­com­ing com­pe­ti­tion.

"We are ex­pect­ing to come out over­all girls' school cham­pi­on again," said Brown.

Her team­mate Ak­i­lah Lewis, who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the World Un­der-20 Games and Carif­ta Games, said, "I think my ex­pe­ri­ence rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try at mul­ti­ple meets. It re­al­ly helps me to have good lead­er­ship qual­i­ties, know­ing the kind of com­pe­ti­tion we are go­ing to have, help­ing the girls re­lax, help­ing the girls to stay fo­cused."

She too be­lieves that her school per­forms well be­cause of their ded­i­ca­tion.

"We have a lot of ded­i­cat­ed team mem­bers, from the ath­letes to the PE (phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion) teach­ers in the school and we have a lot of crowd sup­port which re­al­ly mo­ti­vates us to do our best to rep­re­sent to the best of our abil­i­ty."